


Heir

by blue_ringed_octopus



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Motherhood, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 00:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_ringed_octopus/pseuds/blue_ringed_octopus
Summary: Leia comes to grips with her family inheritance - and her son.





	Heir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nununununu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts).



The Force had always been Luke’s thing. _Vader’s_ thing. So when it came to the stuff binding all life in the universe together, Leia stuck stubbornly to tangible, concrete things - things like planetary coalition-building and galactic politics, for example.

All that changed after she had Ben.

Luke had told her that the Force was strong in their family, and he’d told her that family members shared a uniquely powerful bond in the Force. But being told wasn’t the same as coming to know it firsthand - it wasn’t the same as being able to actually feel her son’s mind in hers.

Ben was hers, and he was strong in the Force. Because of Ben, the Force was going to have to become an ever-present part of Leia’s life.

Ben was not an easy child to raise. He’d cried seemingly nonstop for the first month after he was born, and by the age of two, he’d started having temper tantrums practically every other day. Although these had lessened somewhat in frequency as he’d grown older, the intensity of his emotions never did. He vacillated constantly between the highest of euphoric highs and the lowest of depressive lows - and thanks to their bond, Leia could feel each and every peak and trough, too.

She could only hope that Ben, in turn, could feel how much she loved him regardless of his actions.

At first, Leia asked Luke for training for herself, and obligingly, he taught her how to reach out, how to sense the natural ebb and flow of life’s energies, how to effect a subtle influence upon them. Leia was a hardworking student, so she learned.

Sure enough, it did help. It helped her help Ben. When he raged, she smoothed those jagged edges down like river water flowing over rock. When he brooded, she lifted him up like a strand of hair on a warm puff of breeze. The effort of concentration this required was not inconsiderable, but Leia was willing to make that effort. Ben was her son, and her son deserved all the help she could give.

Then, one day, it didn’t help anymore. Leia might as well have been trying to stop an ion storm with wishful thinking.

Luke said it was because Ben was so powerful in the Force. More powerful than her, more powerful than Luke himself. Possibly even more powerful than _Vader_.

“He must be trained as a Jedi, Leia,” Luke told her. “All that power - uncontrolled, without direction, without focus…”

“Makes him very dangerous,” Leia finished Luke’s sentence for him. She held his gaze steadily as he winced.

“Yes.”

“All right.” She made the decision that quickly, right then and there. She did not doubt that she was making the correct one for Ben.

However…

“Han won’t like it, you know,” Luke said, “and he’s Ben’s father.”

“So? I’m his mother.”

This wasn’t going to be Han’s decision; he didn’t know Ben’s mind like Leia did. He couldn’t. He couldn’t feel that constant, roiling turmoil of Ben’s soul, couldn’t sense the danger. Han thought there was nothing a good chat over a few drinks in the cantina or a quick spin through a few planetary systems in the pilot’s chair of the Falcon couldn’t fix.

Leia, however, knew better - because the Force wasn’t just Luke’s thing or Vader’s thing, not anymore. The Force was her thing, and it was Ben’s - and after he was fully trained, Ben would come into his own as heir to their family’s power.


End file.
